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Gameday: Norforlk Admirals at Charlotte Checkers

The Admirals hold the number one spot in the AHL with 89 points. The Checkers are eighth in the league with 72 points.

Charlotte is 3-2-1-0 against Norfolk this year. This weekend’s games are the last meetings of the two teams in 2012 (unless of course they meet in the Calder Cup Finals). In the points match-up, Charlotte has taken seven points, while Norfolk has six.

The Admirals have a 16 game winning streak. Yes, 16 games, which is over one-fifth of the season, straight. They last lost in Springfield on February 5.

Norfolk has a winning record against every team they have played except for Albany. A sweep of this weekend’s games by the Checkers would change that statistic to include Charlotte as one of the only teams who could beat the Ads this season.

Norfolk Notes:

In six games against Charlotte, Cory Conacher has seven points (3G, 4A). He leads all AHL rookies with 68 points, and is third overall in points as well (31G, 37A).

Mike Murphy should get the start tonight. He last played on Sunday, when he posted a 4-0 shutout against the Midwest division leading Chicago Wolves. In two games against Norfolk this year, Murphy is 1-1. His numbers on the year are pretty outstanding, with a 16-11-2-1 record (2.58 GAA, 0.912 SV%).

In six games against Norfolk, Chris Terry leads the Checkers with eight assists.

Four of Charlotte’s top scorers against Norfolk are not with the Checkers for tonight’s matchup. Jon Matsumoto was traded in January, and Jersome Samson, Bobby Sanguinetti and Drayson Bowman are all with the Hurricanes.

Bobby Sanguinetti is still in Raleigh with the big club. He had 13:45 minutes of ice time in last night’s 2-0 win over the league-leading St. Louis Blues. My fingers are crossed the Hurricanes send him down for tonight’s Checkers game…

Rasmus Rissanen has missed the past five games with an upper body injury. He participated in the full morning skate today and looked as if he could go tonight.

Based on the absence of key forwards, I assume today’s morning skate was optional, so I’m not going to read to much into three missing skaters.

Justin Krueger is still out with a broken hand. He did skate later in practice wearing a yellow no-contact jersey.